D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[Chaosmancer]

Why is this a Issue? I find it completely ok for NPCs to be the type and PCs to be played against type. To me it seems the halfling was created to support well the story of the hero that abandons their roots to pursue destiny... That's what Bilbo did anyway.

I can't speak for Hussar, but part of it is that other races are far easier to play by type and against type. But a halfling PC played by type... can't be a PC for long or must be forced into every single adventure.

Edit: Seems I was right on the money. And yes, it would require changing halflings somewhat to fix this problem. Which is what we have been advocating for.

 

[Faolyn]

I think this is true. But why, then, are Halfling defenders trying to argue that Halflings aren't - in terms of culture and heritage - just interchangeable with humans? That seems like overthinking, or at least overreaching.

Because there are people who are trying to say that halflings shouldn't be in the PH because they are just short humans.

 

[Faolyn]

Being lucky is also a human trope.

But not a human trait.

A Human can take the Lucky feat at level 1 as part of the character concept and be noticeably lucky, moreso than a Halfling.

But that would be an unusual human. A typical halfling is Lucky.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Let's continue with our cut and replace of halflings with humans:



Maybe a couple of quibbles, but, not really out of line. And not something you could do with elves.

I think probably the best bit comes from the relations with humans section:



I mean, good grief, it's RIGHT THERE. They flat out state that halflings aren't terribly different from common humans. It's not like people are inventing this stuff out of thin air. But, sure, try to do the same thing with elves. Or dragonborn. See if it still sounds like a human.

It is very unusual for humans to lack ambition but still be productive, to have no concern for legacy or being remembered, to not have to fight against internal biases against outsiders, and of course we sadly have no particularly special luck.

You keep acting like folks are saying there are no similarities, again hyperbolizing those you disagree with. This is why so many folks react so strongly and negatively to your arguments.

 

[Minigiant]

I guess that depends on the fabric of the setting. An urban elf scoundrel probably has a more interesting back story than a human who grew up in the city. Likewise a halfling captain of the guard. Halflings are probably similar to the rabbits in Zootopia and Judy Hops' story was probably more interesting than some tiger who became a cop.

But tigers don't farm. But a rabbit and a mouse would have the same farmer backstory.

That's the core issue we keep coming to.
Everything a halfling does, a human also does in the same exact way. And humans can do other stuff normally like be nobles or soldiers.

Whereas dwarves and dragonborn do things different from humans.

The 5e halfling is redundant because it is copied froma series where men didn't do the same things as halflings.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Cutting out the dead weight and breaking the game away from the moldering corpse of Tolkien has been a drum I've been banging since early 3e days

By phrasing it like this you are being incredibly disrespectful to the dead, and to those who love his work. It’s a disgusting thing to do.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I personally wouldn't have used the term "destroyed" but I do think some people want to effectively remove the halfling as we know it from the game. As far as popularity, what threshold do we need? According to the best numbers we have they're between 5-6% of the PCs played. That's actually quite good considering how many races are available.

Going from personal experience, halflings are about as common as a lot of the non-human races. Should they be a common race? Who cares? Whether you like it or not, D&D has been and likely always will have a shared heritage with LOTR and halflings are part of that heritage right along with elves, dwarves and how dragons are depicted. While we aren't playing Adventures in Middle Earth by default (I'm sure some people do), there is still an expectation that some of the visuals will remain the same.

A compelling case to me is not "make them more aggressive like every other race". If you don't want to play halflings, there are a ton of other options. All I ask, all anyone is asking, is that you leave us our particular niche race alone even if you don't want to play them. Personally I don't think I'll ever play a tiefling, doesn't mean I'm telling everyone they should be removed from the PHB.

Change for the sake of change is not justification.

And not a SINGLE POSTER has put forth the case that we should make them more aggressive. No one. Not once.

Can you please stop strawmanning everyone? Every time we have to circle back to remind you that no, we aren't saying that thing, and then we need to dig through dozens of posts to prove we didn't say that thing, it just wastes time.

No one has talked about making haflings more aggressive.
The only put forth "delete them from the PHB" has actually been "move them to the MM" which was Hussar, who has repeatedly indicated that they 100% believe that putting them in the MM leaves them as a playable race option.

My own changes to lore could be ignored if you want, and don't need to effect every single halfling, there could still be plenty of halfling commoners.

So, not a single person is trying to take your preferred niche race away. Not even a little bit. It will still be there. Stop with the Strawmen.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah if halflings can't take the place of humans in their description on the PHB... PHB humans can't take the place of the halflings. The problem here is we assumePHB humans are the same as us, so if we see ourselves in halflings we see PHB humans

Okay, I've asked this question a few times now.

How are DnD humans not human? Why are they inhuman?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why is this a Issue? I find it completely ok for NPCs to be the type and PCs to be played against type. To me it seems the halfling was created to support well the story of the hero that abandons their roots to pursue destiny... That's what Bilbo did anyway.

It also isn’t true, to be fair.

Every halfling I’ve played has fit that description, and either had good reason to leave what they wanted from life behind for a time to do something that needed done, or were quite young and traveling the world to see what’s out there before settling down and starting a family.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, almost everyone else had an underdark equivalent. Where are the deep humans?

Grimlocks. Another people who got messed up by the mind flayers.